So this is what I've got so far:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B85Z1_RyWE-RaTd4TGw5Z2xsc1k/view?usp=sharing

I appropriated a combat system I had flying around from a previously attempted hack (trigger warning: it has initiative rules, and a distinction between active/reactive moves to go with it! But it it intrinsically powered by the Apocalypse, and while I have yet to see it in actual play, it may work nicely to emulate those breathlessly action-packed fight scenes...)

There may seem to be a whole bunch of moves, maybe unneccessarily many - but seeing as this is a "one playbook game" so far, I preferred building it broader instead of narrower, when in doubt.
This is why all character get access to all the Combat and Non-Combat basic moves.

There are a number of "Jedi moves" (for current lack of inspiration for a better term, and not wanting to name them "special" moves), which should serve to distinguish individual PCs from each other, despite the many similiarities between them otherwise.

Also, a whole bunch of Force powers, each their own move. I think I'm at 24 right now - another way to customize and distinguish PCs, as each chooses only 6 of them to start out with.

For the whole "combat, damage, harm and dying" stuff, I borrowed a bit from here and there (DW mainly, plus some assorted stuff), and ended up going with Hit Points basically (called Endurance here), but also Named Wounds (of which you can suffer three before going down).


Things I'm interested in at this stage:

* the Taint & Corruption mechanics - do you think they will work, do you think they are cool, fit the theme, etc.?

* the Combat moves (both supportive & set-up moves, and actual hack-and-slash moves) - too complex? Too confusingly written? Anything missing, or anything redundant?
Also of course, do you think they will work and feel right?

* the Force powers - did I miss any that would be really essential to have? Is there any unneccessary overlap between some if them? (I keep feeling there is, but can't pinpoint it when I go looking...)
Also, are they represented in sufficient accordance with the source fiction? (I.e., do I very badly violate any SW fluff here?)

In short, any comments or observations are welcome! :-)

Oh yeah, and a char sheet is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B85Z1_RyWE-RUk9TN3d2VWNtejA/view?usp=sharing

Thanks for the positive feedback so far - good to know I don't seem to be talking entirely crazy! ;-)

Have you seen any of the AW hacks for Star Wars by chance? Some are pretty darn good IMO.

I looked around a fair bit, but I'm sure I haven't seen them all... Any you'd like to recommend, I'll gladly take a look at!

The "manipulate as if on a 10+" thing does sound pretty cool, true. It gives the MC the choice on when to tempt PCs and what to tempt them to...
Also, I bet it nicely "turns the tables" on the PCs - seeing as its usually only them rolling the dice, being compelled like this by the MC will surely feel... humbling, shall we say? :-D
The Dark Side is after all, a force greater and more powerful than any particular individual. In the end, it devours all who dare meddle with it - and this rule might well reflect that.


Oh, yeah, on an unrelated note: my hack is intended to focus on "grey" Jedi, because precisely this element of temptation, of flirting with the Dark Side, but being reluctant to wholly give in to it, is important to me to have as a focus of the game.
I want to avoid "light side starch-asses" just as much as "all is lost to me anyhow, so why hold back" darkies. The middle ground here, is where the interesting decisions get made, imho.

Who amongst us doesn't occassionally get this urge, you know, the one to get some roleplaying going on in that most well-known, and one of the most popular, fantasy-in-space settings out there?

I for one certainly do - but somehow, none of the existing games out there ever seemed to get all the important elements quite right... so what other choice than to try my own hands at it? So that's just what I'm proposing to do in here.

As behooves any AW hack (the way I see it, anyways), I intend to focus on just those elements I find most interesting about the source material, and strive to get them represented just right.

Additionally, I have tried to identify some "common problematic areas" in existant Star Wars games, and tried to avoid them. Here goes a brief list:

1.) mixed Jedi and non-Jedi groups
2.) how "light" and "dark" Jedi (and their powers)  are rendered, both rules-wise and in the fluff
3.) the (imho) most important theme at the core of the entire setting: the temptation by the dark side of the force

The resolutions to each of these will narrow down my premise for this hack.

ad 1.) mixing Jedi and non-Jedi in a player group, I always felt this to be problematic. Not only does it bring up issues of "power balance" and all that stuff, but it also can feel pretty limiting as regards properly exploring the various' characters' themes and story arcs.
By which I mean, a smuggler, or a diplomat, or a bounty hunter, will almost certainly require different types of stories (scenarios, NPCs, agendas, etc.) to be able to really sing in a game, than a Jedi character will.

It is insofar no great wonder why Luke splits off from the rest of the party on several occassions in the movies - since he just has decidedly different things that are important or interesting to do, for him.

Most games I have seen so far that have tried to get all of those different types of character under one ruleset, have achieved only to either make the Jedi character ridiculously overpowered (sometimes to a degree where there seems no point in playing anything else, really), or virtually unneccessary to play (for the opposite reason).

In short, I resolved to try making a game about "Jedi only". No non-Force-users as PCs.
This is sort of the reverse approach from what "Edge of the Empire" does (which focusses on smugglers, rogues, bounty hunters and mercenary types exclusively), and which I think works really well for what it does.

So, this is likely going to be a "one playbook hack", i.e. there will be only one type of character to play: a Jedi apprentice.

This makes the group of PCs by necessity a bunch of apprentices, most likely taught by a common (or several separate) Mentor(s). Or who have a missing mentor and are now on their own.


ad 2.) "light" and "dark" force powers, here is my usual problem with those:
Let's face it, the Dark Powers are just more fun, usually. The Light Powers are often mostly described as defensive, perception-related, and/or weak. The Dark Force stuff is where the fun is at, however - zapping your enemies with lightning, strangling them and throwing stuff around with telekinesis, you name it...

Now, the ususal drift that I see in a Star Wars game is to punish the player for indulging in the fun too much. That's supposed to represent the dangers of the Dark Side, of course, but I also find it's actually pretty bad design.

Part of this is that individual powers are often "typed" as being either dark or light, with (often) nary a "grey" or "neutral" power in the mix.

This all leads me straight into my 3rd point -


ad 3.) the temptations of the Dark Side, I can't help but find it distasteful to write the rules in any way that basically says "now roll for whether your character succumbs to the temptation". This often leads to (more or less) elaborate simulationism, but it does little to involve the player themselves, give them meanigful choices about the matter, or evoke that awesome, terrible feeling of temptation, the lure of power, fear, guilt, consequences, etc.

I would try a (perhaps radically?) different approach: put the temptation not into the characters (and its stats and mechanics and so on), but move it to the player themselves.

The idea came to me when I thought about that the lure of the Force could be modelled pretty much similar to an addiction. Because what does the Force mean in essence? It means power. And few things should be more addictive than that, really.
The craving for ever more power, the increasing recklessness in pursuing it, the piling-up of sacrifices made to that end... all those things, if effectively transported away from the sheet, and into the player, could make for an intense gaming experience, I'd argue.


So that's why I decided against "light/dark" typed Force powers. A Force power should in most cases be just that - a neutral ability, at least in its basic form. Most powers would get a list of "optional upgrade options", which you could make use of if you tap into the Dark Side of the Force - but only then.

So, for example, there could be Force Hold power, allowing you to immobilize people in a certain range from you. The move for it would give you several options, e.g. near range in stead of hand range, or affect up to 3 people instead of affect 1 person - available depending on how well you rolled (10+ or 7-9, as familiar)
Now, you could "augment" this power with "additional options" by "accepting Dark Side points". For each Dark Side point you accept (and which gets recorded on your sheet or handed out as tokens to the player, whatever), you can make use of one of the move's additional options - which might include things like affect a huge-sized monster (like perhaps a Bantha or something) or up to 7 people instead of up to 3 people, or far range instead of just near... and of course the ever-popular choke 'em to torturous death option!

Now, with someting like this, no more need for "typed" Force Powers, or, in fact, typed Jedi "classes" or anything. Instead, it is now the player's responsibility to judge and decide on how many (if any) Dark Points they wish to incur at any given time they use this power.

Dark Points, of course, get recorded, and they accumulate. Jedi can undergo cleansing rituals, or abstain from the use of the Force for a while, thus decreasing their Dark Points. But barring that, they'll only become more with time (and reckless Force use).

Also, I wouldn't be too wedded to this idea that letting the players go off in umpty different directions is necessarily "being a fan of the characters." The PCs are at their hottest when they're interacting with each other. Maybe giving them some gentle corraling is being more of a fan than letting them hare off into realms where they only get to interact with NPCs.

I'd have to agree with Munin on this. It does, after all, say "Bring it. MC the game." in the book as well...
Or in other words, complete freedom is perhaps not always the ideal way to go. Creativity can profit from a certain amounts of limitations, sometimes.

There have been plenty of suggestions already, on how to "tie characters back in" to each others' stories. I'd like to add two:
For the Brainer in the maelstrom, detached from his body - consider bringing into play something that threatens his physical body. (A plague, a big raid, some shenanigans that Hoarder is unwittingly up to...) He will be able to feel (or even precog) this in the maelstrom, perhaps, making him strongly consider to return to his body... at least for as long as it takes to avert that threat.

For the guy who goes off to another hardhold over the mountains, and starts a new life there, makes new alliances, etc. - consider revealing that this hardholder's leader(s) is/are planning to raid, or even annihilate, the other hardhold. The one where that PC originally came from, and where (some of) the others still are. Now with that, even if the PC doesn't decide to abandon his newly-found alliances and return back home to warn/help the others... even when he stays right where he is and keeps on doing his thing - the situation will become of greater (and increasingly more immediate) interest to the other PCs... one of which may just decide to drop by one day... or at least send a few goons over perhaps...
 
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Alternately, you can perhaps fruitfully go the other route, and permit the PCs their wandering-around every which way into the larger world (and other worlds). In this case, sooner or later, consider giving all of the players addititional PCs to play in each other's stories.
If, as you said, you're becoming "eager spectators" to each other's doings, why not have the group create some people who are all disembodied people who have gotten dragged into the maelstrom - or entered it of their own free will. Your Brainer would have good company, and the other players would get something to do, above and beyond just watching the 1-on-1 play...

The same thing can be done with PCs who have gone to other hardholds, are hanging out in different social strata of the same big hardhold, etc.

Just try to avoid hardcore hermits alone in the middle of the desert, and you might just be fine ^^


If, at some point, the stories of the (original) PCs should happen to re-align, fine. You can have a grand finale that wraps up a lot of common threads then.
Or the stories may remain separate, but then at least all of the players are invested in all of them and each gets to shape each other's while it happens...

Arete: Gone
Spheres: Not relevant

ballsy decisions, both... but perhaps just what this hack needs for simplicity :)

Avatar: Mentioned in one playbook move, not core to play

Sure enough, the Avatar never really needed any hard 'n fast rules anyways. I kept it around for a "gazing inwards" basic move, which replaces "open your brain" in my hack. Useful for mystical introspection, and seekings mainly. But I see how one could just ditch the idea wholesale, too.

Paradigm: That's one of the systems we overhauled. It works much better now

I'll be interested to see that! :)

Rotes: Pretty much what playbook moves give you anyway.

true, I was thinking the same thing. Plus, you can always come up with new "spellcasting moves" if needed. If they're written in a relatively flexible / open-ended way, they can emulate general Sphere effects, if they are more specific, Rotes.

Traditions: You can easily make any of the traditions with the playbooks we're writing, but there aren't "tradition playbooks." We might include some "Tradition moves" in the hacking section.

That's a neat idea, putting them in the hacking section. They're certainly not required for the core game to work.

(Added merely for comparison of approaches: I ended up modeling the playbooks on various roles in Mage society, e.g. the Node Keeper, the Chantry Leader, the Fury (Battlemage), the Loremaster, the Seer, the Mercy (healer/preserver type), etc. Some of them map more closely to certain Traditions, but none of them are restricted to any of them.
But then, the Traditions were always the most wonky aspect of M:tA, imho added mainly to provide that "character class" feel the other WoD games so neatly had with their Clans and Tribes and all that. Except in Mage, that somehow never made so much sense to begin with... ;) )

Ooh, this looks interesting!

Been skimming over it a bit - but there's one thing I can't figure out: how do you use the Rotes under this system? There seems to be no Arete rating and no "cast a spell" basic move as it were.
So, what do you roll for? Or is there no roll at all involved, just the tags and perhaps the Backlash / Vulgar Magic / Demonstrate Superiority moves?

Hm, why not go with a half-and-half approach, and make both breed and role playbooks?

Players could then pick one of each, and get (or choose from) all the moves in both.

That way, all gorillas could for example get a (hypothetical) "biggest and strongest" move, regardless of whether they are warriors or teachers or whatever...

Of course, if you choose the "obvious" combinations, the moves could very well complement each other (so gorilla warriors might be full of moves that make them very strong at what they do), but other combinations (chimp warrior, gorilla teacher, etc) could also prove to be very interesting to choose.